Pet Effects on Mental Health (Research Paper Example)

People often get animals so that they can play and have fun with them but what a lot of people dont know is how much more animals can mean and impact a persons life and mental health. Animals are capable of so much more than just running around chewing on things, sometime they are able to change a persons whole life. Owning a pet animal benefits major aspects of peoples lives by how much they can interact with a human and excel their health.  

Mental health is something anyone can suffer with, with various ways to help treat mental health, animals have become a more common solution for some people's mental health.  Animals are capable of lowering a human's blood pressure levels just by simply interacting with the animals (“The Power of Pets” ,2018).  Surrounding humans with high blood pressure levels around animals gives a human a feeling of relaxation and peace causing blood pressure levels to drop. Following with animals lowering human’s high blood pressure, animals can also boost someone's mood by giving them a reason to get out of their comfort zones and becoming comfortable with those comfort zones (“5 Ways Pets Help with Stress and Mental Health”,2021). Having a pet animal provides structure for humans which is also good for a human's mental health. Owning a pet is a lot of work and makes humans have a routine in their everyday lives. Having to take a dog out to the bathroom, feed them, play with them, makes humans feel like they have a purpose to life and make them feel like they have meaning. Having a routine to a human's day benefits human mental health by staying on top of tasks, focused and a good routine (“Pets and mental health”, 2022).

Depression can greatly impact a human's life and cause  harsh results on someone's life. Having an animal that will be able to help guide a human through situations that may be challenging for someone who suffers with depression is majorly helpful. Depression comes with countless amounts of feelings and thoughts that can pull humans into a extremely dark place and animals help pull humans out of that dark place. Getting out and exercising can be hard for someone who suffers from depression, having a pet animal that needs to be outside and running around can greatly impact someone who struggles with depression and exercising because animals only push the person to be more active (“How Dogs Can Help With Depression”, 2018). “An analysis of 148 studies on the topic found that people who have solid social networks are 50% more likely to live longer than those with limited social networks”(“Pets can help their humans create friendships, find social support”, 2015, page 2). Owning an animal can make it easier for humans to make conversation with others easier, giving them an easy conversation starter by having an animal (“Pets can help their humans create friendships, find social support”,

 2015). When someone who struggles with human interactions and or socialization walks around with an animal and they have another person approach and ask questions or compliment the person's animal, the animal gives them an easy topic to talk about creating a conversation easier.   

Having a companion animal reduces a human's feeling of loneliness, being able to be surrounded by people benefits humans mental health because the world can get lonely. People that struggle with human interactions often have animals as their companions in place of human companions which still gives just as much benefits to human mental health and the feeling of loneliness (Loneliness and Isolation, 2021). Humans often have better mental health when they have physical contact with other people. Petting an animal is the same way, simply touching or petting an animal gives humans the feeling of happiness and increases their mental health (“7 ways pets improve your health”, 2021). 

Therapy is a common way to help with humans mental health but for some people pet therapy is a better option than therapy with another human. Pet therapy is a type of therapy for people who struggle with mental health, animals are used to interact with humans by doing activities with them to increase their enjoyment and happiness (“Consumer Health”,2020). Oftentimes pet therapy is used for people in hospitals, patients are given the option to have pet therapy where a worker would bring in an animal so that the patient can interact with the animals, helping get their mind off whatever they may have going on physically or mentally (“What is Pet Therapy”,2021).

There are many benefits to having pet therapy as an option for humans. It can increase happiness resulting in decrease of anxiety. People that struggle with anxiety sometimes happen to be scared to go out into the real world because everything moves so quickly and can stress them out and give them anxiety, but animals live in the moment and do not worry about yesterday or tomorrow. This can help people with anxiety and help calm their nerves (“The health and mood-boosting benefits of pets”,2021). Another way pet therapy benefits humans is it reduces pain. Like anxiety, animals help humans feel pain by getting humans minds off of the pain. When humans are feeling pain, animals help keep the brain distracted and focused on the animal rather than the pain a human may be feeling (“The benefits of pet therapy”,2020). 

Veterans often struggle from PTSD when they come home from the army and a lot of the time the veterans have to spend a majority of their time back dealing with multiple PTSD symptoms. Symptoms like flashbacks, anxiety, nightmares and a whole lot more are hard to deal with alone, especially coming back from the army. That's where animals come in hand to help veterans out with their PTSD  (“U.S. Army: Dogs Help Battle PTSD”,2010). In order for an animal to become a service animal for veterans the animal has to go through a lot of training compared to any other training. Some veterans have PTSD symptoms from big crowds which can cause them to get flashbacks from war, trained animals are trained to stand in front of or behind the veteran to avoid large crowds. Veterans also may have nightmares from war when they are sleeping so animals are trained to wake their owner up from their sleep to avoid having those nightmares. A Psychiatric dog is known for helping veterans with mental health issues like anxiety, depression, panic attacks, bipolar disorder and a whole lot more. A Psychiatric dog is capable of identifying symptoms of anxiety attacks before an anxiety attack happens, apply physical pressure to a veterans body to help calm nerves, get a veterans medication during an anxiety attack, alert surrounding people to call for help, and a whole lot more.  These dogs are highly trained to be able to help their owners (“What Are Psychiatric Service Dogs?” ,2021).

Being a veteran is a lot of following rules and following commandments, that being when veterans come back from war they usually don't know what to do because nobody is telling them what to do. Service animals are trained a lot more than any other trained animal but service animals are trained especially for following rules and orders which is often calming for veterans. When veterans make an order and the dog follows the order it's often calming to the veteran and makes them feel as though they are still in the army (“Service Dogs Better Than Emotional Support Dogs at Reducing PTSD Symptoms, Study Finds”,2021). Service animals for veterans learn a lot more tasks than any other service animals, they are taught how to help and guide a veteran with PTSD until they are able to cooperate as they had before going into the army. These animals are taught to give effection like touching with their paws or nose so the veteran can feel compashion and touch. They are also trained to remind their owner to do tasks like when to take their medication. These animals are trained almost as though they are just another human in a veterans life that is why the cost of these animals are so much more than just a regular animal (“Selecting Tasks for PTSD Service Dogs”,2018). Interacting with PTSD service dogs can sometimes be difficult to know whether someone can approach the animals or not. In a veterans eyes when people ask what the service animal is for its often embarrassing to answer as a veteran. It is best for a person to ask clearly if they can pet or approach the service animals because PTSD service dogs are all trained to help and protect their owner and petting the animal can sometimes confuse them and what they have been trained to do. (“Service Dogs and PTSD” ,2020) .

Owning a pet animal benefits major aspects of peoples lives by how much they can interact with a human and excel their health. Having a animal that can benefit a persons mental health is usuful for people in our world. People that may struggle with mental health sometimes cant find the help they need in other people so having an animal that could be more comfortable for a person is only helping more.